


Baffled

by La_Canaille



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Spoilers, Unrequited Crush, magic spells, not very scientific, or specific, smordo, strordo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 20:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8415145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/La_Canaille/pseuds/La_Canaille
Summary: Karl couldn't understand Stephen.





	

Karl couldn't understand Stephen.

There were signs, right from the beginning. A strange, solitary white man, wandering aimlessly among the bustling crowd of Kathmandu, muttering the name of the most powerful sorcery society on earth, having not the slightest clue about neither the meaning of that name, nor the dangers that lurked around him. Karl saw through the man's physique at the first glance: it wasn't the first time he ever witnessed this level of damage. Actually it was more than familiar to him. But there was something unique in that man's complexion, something he had never seen before. So Karl decided to observe him.

Like every other tourist spoiled by the safety and convenience of the first world, he was ill-prepared for the assaults of local scoundrels. He was clearly untrained, and the injuries on his hands prevented him from doing anything effective anyway. The gang leader blocked his move effortlessly. He quickly fell to the ground, crawling and shivering under a shower of angry fists. It was a pathetic sight to behold.

Normally Karl would not interfere with such matters. This sort of petty street fights took place in Kathmandu all the time. The mission of sorcerers was to protect earth from other dimensions, not from insignificant threats within the human race. The Ancient One had warned him against the dangers of participating in mundane affairs.  _It would be very tempting for us,_  she had said to him,  _to simply stop wars, dethrone tyrants, avert famines, cure disease…with the aid of spells a sorcerer could be a God among men._

He had remained mute, for those were his initial motivations to learn sorcery. Luckily he was a changed man now.

 _But promise me, Karl, promise me that you'll never do it._ She looked at him ruefully, with an air of unfathomable exhaustion. He couldn't help nodding, though he didn't really understand her, just as usual.  _Your past had past, and now you are a sorcerer, protector of the natural laws. It's not your place to judge other men._

 _Of course._  He had said to her.  _Of course I'll always follow the rules. I hereby vow to you._

It took him mere seconds to take out those similarly untrained thugs. The white man stared at him in awe.

Karl didn't want to admit, but he enjoyed the look of near adoration on that strange man's face. But his expression turned into crude curiosity almost instantly. Grumbling inside, Karl led him to Kamar-Taj.

The Ancient One would teach Strange a lesson, just like she had taught him. And then he would learn.

 

*

 

The Ancient One used the Everest teaching method again. Luckily, Strange survived it.

Karl was happier at the sight of a crawling Strange on the ground than he should be.

 

*

 

Stephen Strange wanted to understand everything. He familiarized himself with all types of knowledge and spells at an alarming speed. The Ancient One was pleasantly surprised. Wong was not pleased.

“There is no need be mad.” Karl said to Wong one day. “You’re angry at him only because his stubbornness - and, well, talent - reminds you of Kaecilius.”

“And you are tolerant of him,” said Wong, calm as the surface of stilled waters, just like usual, “because he reminds you of you?”

Karl stared at Wong.

“That was a joke.” Wong explained.

Karl was not reassured.

 

*

 

The bell struck twelve. It was midnight.

There was a suspicious figure, wrapped in dark robes, moving silently in the yard. Weeks ago this would have startled Karl and made him switch into attack mode immediately, but now he knew it was just Stephen.

He sighed, and walked to the diligent sorcerer.

“Still studying?”

“Nope. Just contemplating beautiful nature without any ulterior motive.”

Karl paused to look at Stephen’s eerily serene face, dimly lit by the moon. _He sure has some strangely shaped cheekbones._ He blinked. “That doesn’t sound like you, __Doctor.__ ”

“The Ancient One said I need to relax and slower down a bit. She told me that absorbing extraterrestrial knowledge and compress all of them in my inexperienced human soul in too short a time is extremely unhealthy and undeniably hazardous to both my spiritual and physical well-being. I still want my fingers and my brain to remain intact, so here I am.”

“You don’t sound slow at all.”

Stephen shrugged in an over dramatic way. “I am what I am.” He said mockingly.

“Apparently your ego is well intact, so don’t worry.”

“Ha!” Stephen made a face at Karl. He had to repress the urge to laugh with him. “At least you understand humor. No offense on my part, but Wong is basically a stone. Nothing moves him.”

 _Or maybe it’s just that you haven’t found the right perspective to perceive his moves,_ Karl mused to himself.

Stephen continued. “He doesn’t even want to tell me his first name! Come on, he gotta have one, right? I know Chinese and English work in very different ways linguistically, but you guys do have first names, don’t you? So he just wants to fuck with me. It’s not my fault. Wong is almost as bad as Christine in her bad moods. Maybe worse.”

Karl fidgeted uncomfortably. People here don’t talk about their life before Kamar-Taj. Don’t talk and don’t ask, and you won’t be asked. It’s the unwritten common rule.

“Speaking of whom, I had already sent her two emails, and she replied to neither. Do you understand? I sent her not one, but two emails, and she wrote back to neither. Not even an empty polite formal note. That was so - hey where are you going?”

“You can keep contemplating your moon. I’ll go and find another one.”

“Wait, Karl I didn’t mean - ”

He opened a portal and left.

 

*

 

That night he dreamed of his past. He woke up shuddering in cold sweat, nauseated and anxious, bed sheet strangling underneath his body. He came to the Ancient One.

“I cannot give you what you want.” said she, “the answer does not belong to me, and cannot be given to you by anyone, except you. You have to find it within your own heart, under the guidance of your own will.”

For the first time in years he felt almost irritated by her spiritual talk. He dared not to look in her eyes, afraid of being found out. He had tried so hard and lived above his demons for so long, he couldn’t disappoint her now.

 _Just a little longer._  He thought to himself. _Just a little longer and all will be finished. Kaecilius will soon be eliminated, and after that everything will return to what it should be._ As long as he follows the rules and the Ancient One, all will be fine.

He might never be able to lose his demons, but he would never be caught by them. Not again.

 

*

 

And then there was Stephen.

Stephen, with his insufferable humor, over-inflated ego, ridiculous moustache, and unsurpassable brilliance. For all his arrogance and vanity, this man knew not what he was worth, nor what he was becoming. After all the wonders he witnessed in Kamar-Taj, he was still thinking about his stupid doctorate degree, totally workable fingers and Christine. The Ancient One taught him to be patient, but Karl found it more and more difficult to be patient around Stephen.

“Then maybe you don’t have to be patient around him.” She smiled. “It’s easy to tell that he still misses his old life very much. After he figured out a way to reconnect his nerves seamlessly, he might as well leave, just like our old friend Jonathan Pangborn.”

Karl’s heart skipped a beat.

“But first, Kaecilius.” 

With these words all mirth dissolved in the room, her pale, androgynous face, hardened by unimaginable sorrows, marred by innumerable years of servitude, looked once again like an expressionless antique statue carved in granite, without a trace of joviality or life. Sometimes Karl found her face resembled more mask than flesh.

“Focus.” she reminded him.

“Sure.” Karl snapped out of his blasphemous train of thought. “I’m sorry, the Ancient One..”

Stephen’s rudeness and disrespect must be contagious.

 

*

 

Karl had never understood The Ancient One. He admired her, obeyed her, adored her, idolized her, took her every single word as holy scripture, maybe even loved her - but he had never truly comprehended her. Not that he ever minded. He thought she was worth following and that was enough for him. That used to be enough for him.

And now he realized that she did not teach him to live above his demons. No. She _was_  the demon. She bargained with the demon. She led all of them to the demon. She deceived him. She ruined him. She ruined them. She ruined the world. And now Stephen…

Stephen took her to the hospital.

Stephen came back, failed, but still decided to follow her.

Stephen invited him.

Karl couldn't understand Stephen.

 

*

 

“Now I understand,” he muttered to a crawling Jonathan on the ground, a pathetic sight to behold, “I had a revelation.”

“There are too many sorcerers in the world.”

 

*

 

He never had to live above his demons. All he ever needed was to live among them.

How he wished Stephen could understand this too.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, hope you enjoy! English is not my first language. Apologies for any possible mistake.


End file.
